


The Hardest Part

by Kyele



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: (the comfort got left off), Angst, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e02 An Ordinary Man, Gangbang, Kink Meme, M/M, d'Artagnan Whump, poor d'Artagnan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt on the kink meme: <i>[Series 2 Episode 2 spoilers] While held captive, the slavers go over each of their captives to choose who will go where. D'Artagnan is selected for the brothels, and in front of the King of France who is forced to watch in horror, d'Artagnan is raped by the slavers.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Part

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/2286.html?thread=3101678#cmt3101678): _What if not all of the men taken by the slavers were going to the Spanish galleys?_
> 
> _What if the prettiest of them, the youngest, and most comely were for the European Brothels?_
> 
> _While held captive, the slavers go over each of their captives to choose who will go where. D'Artagnan is selected for the brothels, and in front of the King of France who is forced to watch in horror, d'Artagnan is raped by the slavers._
> 
> _After they escape d'Artagnan wants to pretend it never happened, and Louis doesn't know what to say or do (big surprise), however Milady takes great pleasure in hinting to Athos what happened to his lover, which when on inspection of his torn bloody breeches, limping gait, and the bruises from where he's been pinned down, it's easy to see what she's telling him._
> 
> _Now Athos had to try and deal with the fact his ex-wife has come back, and try to help d'Artagnan heal both mentally and physically, as well as keeping the boy from throwing away his commission in his anger to the Kings actions post kidnap._
> 
> I didn't hit all the follow-on details, but the d'Artagnan whump all came through. Also, the d'Artagnan/Athos is more implied than anything else. But it was on my mind when I was writing it, for what that's worth.

The hardest part, d’Artagnan thinks at first, is going to be _not_ fighting. Every nerve in his body is singing with tension. Adrenaline hums through his veins. D’Artagnan sees his captors approach through lowered eyes and a dozen scenarios run through his head. He will roll sideways, grasp the first man’s arm, and kick the second’s legs out from under him. No: he will go for the pistol the second man is carrying. No, wait, better still: he will feint towards the pistol, and when the man is distracted, snatch his sword out of its scabbard instead.

No. No, he will not do any of those things, d’Artagnan tells himself firmly. Those are soldiering things. Musketeering things. The peasant youth in chains – _fetch a fine price in the brothels, he will, so pretty –_ is not a soldier. He is certainly not a Musketeer. If he were such things, what would that mean for the other peasant he’d been captured with? The one on the other end of the shared chains, who is huddled down against the concrete post between them, trying so hard not to see? Better not to ask. Better not to fight.

The hardest part, d’Artagnan tells himself, will be not fighting.

He makes himself go limp. Hands grasp him, sweaty and groping and far too many for the number of bodies that surround him, it seems. Are these slavers or demons? Does it really matter which?

D’Artagnan’s clothes are torn from him. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself: they’re not really _his_ clothes. When this is over, the King will buy him more. The King will certainly owe him that much. Still, it’s oddly hard not to care about the clothes. They seem to represent more than just cheap fabric and bad stitching. They have some psychological value d’Artagnan only appreciates when they’re gone. So perhaps the hard part will be not caring about his clothes.

Oh, but the ground is hard, too. Hard in a literal sense, but hard in a metaphorical sense, too. The harsh planes dig into d’Artagnan’s shoulderblades when he’s knocked flat – not fighting; he mustn’t fight – and the splinters tear at his skin when he’s rolled onto his belly. And the way his nails break when he scrabbles them against the dirt, instinctively, is almost the hardest part of all. Splinters of nail, flakes of packed earth; question: what’s the difference? Answer: there is none. Both are objects; both are there to be used as the slavers please.

So maybe the ground is the hard part. The ground, and the clothes, and the not fighting –

But no. No, of course, there’s a harder part to follow. D’Artagnan just hasn’t been thinking about it, that’s all. Which has been on purpose. So add that to the list: the hardest part is not thinking about it.

Not thinking about the fingers that roughly spread his cheeks. Not thinking about the gob of spit that lands slightly to the left of its mark and trickles down his inner thigh. Not thinking about the crude laughter of the slavers, the jokes: _well, close enough, isn’t it? He’ll have to get used to it anyway. Where he’s going they won’t waste even spit on him._

D’Artagnan’s not thinking about the blunt pressure at his hole. The stretch, the tearing, the sudden pop as he’s breached for the first time. Not thinking about the pressure that soon batters him from without and within, the way his whole body is juddered against the hard, unforgiving earth, the rush of warmth that is part blood and part semen.

And d’Artagnan’s definitely not thinking about the first man withdrawing, and the second man taking his pace. Not thinking about how many slavers there are in Lemaitre’s gang – Six? Eight? Ten? Their numbers seem to ebb and flow – not thinking about how long it will take the first man to rest and be ready to go again. Not thinking that this could go on all night. All day tomorrow. All voyage. _Forever._

But that’s not even the hardest part. The hardest part is how alone d’Artagnan feels. When the first man tears into him and d’Artagnan can barely hold back the scream, he turns his head slightly and searches out his King. Surely seeing that Louis is still safe will make this less hard. Surely his King will have some measure of encouragement to offer.

Louis is looking at him – that is, no – he’s not looking at d’Artagnan – he’s looking through him. The King’s face is slack. His eyes are glazed. His body is here, but his spirit is elsewhere. Somewhere d’Artagnan cannot follow.

No one else is looking at him, either. D’Artagnan is in the middle of a forest clearing surrounded by a dozen slaves, chained together with no room to move, nowhere to go – and _none of them_ are looking at him.

So the loneliness – amidst the physical violation and the emotional abuse and the creeping, gut-wrenching despair – is the hardest part.

Well. No it’s not.

Because eventually the slavers do finish with him – with d’Artagnan and the other boy they’d deemed ‘pretty enough’ for the brothels. And eventually, despite his expectations, d’Artagnan does manage to fall into a fitful sleep. And d’Artagnan is woken from his sleep by Milady de Winter, who’s discovered a conscience – or at least a finely honed sense of political expediency – and helps them escape.

Nothing has ever tasted so sweet as hope. And nothing has ever tasted so bitter as being dragged back to the camp again, double-ironed this time, convinced that he’s blown his one chance to save himself as the King.

So the hardest part is unequivocally the _second_ time. Being thrown down and raped again, still bleeding from last time, with the very last shreds of hope and life and resistance extinguished.

Except that Lemaitre’s own friends betray him, and hope rears up again twice as strong as ever. Except that D’Artagnan’s friends come after all and help defeat Lemaitre’s band. Except that Athos listens when d’Artagnan demands Lemaitre’s life, and there’s nothing hard at all about killing that man, about pinning him to the ground with his own sword and watching him writhe in agony and imagining the three days it will take him to die.

They go back to Paris and the King is safe, alive, whole, and that _has_ to be worth something. That has to be worth everything. D’Artagnan clings to that: he did his duty. He saved the King. And the King, to show his gratitude, offers d’Artagnan Bruno’s life.

D’Artagnan wishes to think the King’s motives are good. That the King, remembering d’Artagnan’s ordeal, believes that killing Bruno will bring him some measure of peace. But when d’Artagnan declines, the King changes his character. And the hardest part, the absolute hardest part absolutely _has_ to be standing there while the King berates him. The blame Louis heaps on d’Artagnan’s head is a pale shadow of the guilt already tearing at d’Artagnan’s guts. But it hurts all the same.

It’s hard. It’s almost, but not quite, as hard as going to Pepin’s wife immediately after. But d’Artagnan goes, with his guilt and his pain and the limp he’s trying so hard to conceal, because however hard it is it’s nowhere near as hard as Pepin’s wife and child take the news of his death. D’Artagnan hands Mme Pepin the purse and kneels to comfort the child, ignoring the trickle of blood that runs down his leg, because this, this, _this_ is the hardest part. The crying mother, and the stoic child, and the lie that comes from d’Artagnan’s lips when he tells them that the King will take care of them all.

Except that it should be over, done and forgotten, and d’Artagnan can’t forget.

Except that Athos knocks on d’Artagnan’s door that evening. Except that d’Artagnan bids him enter, and Athos comes in, a pair of bloodstained peasants’ pants in his hands and a silent question in his eyes. And then d’Artagnan knows.

 _This_ is the hardest part.


End file.
